Free Republic

SAN ANTONIO – KSAT’s discovery of hundreds of emails and text messages between the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and an Austin-based criminal justice reform group has revealed just how much of an influence the group had on the DA. Earlier this week, KSAT obtained more than 200 pages of conversations between the firm’s founder, District Attorney Joe Gonzales and First Assistant District Attorney Christian Henrickson — many of which involve specific cases and policies. KSAT obtained the records through an open records request. The Wren Collective’s website states it is a strategic advising firm made up of former public...

At the time of his arrest, Padilla had open robbery and grand larceny cases in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn, according to sources. In all, the troublesome ex-con has 201 prior arrests — not counting sealed cases — dating back to 2006 on charges ranging from forgery, grand larceny and robbery to burglary and reckless endangerment, the sources said. Padilla was hit with a prison sentence of three to six years in 2017 after pleading guilty to grand larceny in a Manhattan case. He was released on parole in 2021 — though sources said it hasn’t deterred him. “He...

Child rapists will be eligible for the death penalty and Florida will crack down on drug dealers targeting kids. TITUSVILLE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed tough new legislation that will beef up penalties for drug-dealers who target kids and make child rapists eligible for the death penalty. Another measure will shield Floridians from left-wing bail reform policies that have led to increased crime rates by softening penalties for law-breakers. Gov. DeSantis’ office announced the approval of the laws in a Monday afternoon press release, touting the measures as a means to “strengthen public safety...

One of the most contentious issues in the last municipal elections in New York City and across the rest of the state was the “bail reform” law that was passed a few years ago. It included language mandating judges to find the “least restrictive” conditions possible to ensure that suspects would not skip out on their court dates. The result was a situation where nearly every accused criminal who hadn’t committed one of the more serious, violent crimes was immediately put back on the street. The resultant spiraling crime rates have had even law-abiding residents in the liberal urban areas...

When you read about crime in NYC, sometimes you get that feeling that half the city’s residents are criminals and tens of thousands of people routinely break the law. In the case of shoplifting, however, a very small number of cheats are actually to blame for an amazing percentage of the crime—in fact, 327 individuals are responsible for over a third of such thefts and have been arrested an outrageous 6,000 times.The New York Times reports:Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and...

New Jersey Republican Robert Singer has had enough and wants to change New Jersey's Chris Christie era Bail Reform Act. LAKEWOOD, NJ – Let’s face it. Bail reform isn’t working. New Jerseyans watch the news daily only to see violent crimes being perpetrated against society by violent repeat criminals who oftentimes commit new crimes hours or days after getting released under the state’s critically flawed bail reform act. Bail reform was introduced in New Jersey as a ballot referendum in New Jersey, championed by then-governor Chris Christie, an avid supporter of bail reform, and repeatedly attacked those who said it...

As he mulls another bid for president — a decision he said he will make within months — Chris Christie is confronting the critics of one of the marquee achievements of his administration: bail reform. When he was governor, Christie led a bipartisan effort in New Jersey to overhaul the way courts decide who gets locked up before trial. “We have a country right now that seems to be crying out, or at least they say they’re crying out, for some bipartisan accomplishment,” the two-term former Republican governor told a crowd ahead of a discussion hosted by the Christie Institute...

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) is campaigning for the “rights” of women to abort a child up to the point of birth but just won’t keep career criminals in jail where they can’t rape women. A New York City woman was jogging along the Hudson River Thursday morning around 6 a.m. when a fiend on a bike knocked her down, choked her into unconsciousness, and raped her. In Kathy Hochul’s New York, law-abiding New Yorkers are forced to live in fear.Come January, in Lee Zeldin’s New York, criminals will be the ones forced to live in fear.Election Day is 5 days...

An alleged member of the neon-cloaked “Green Goblin” gang accused of pummeling two 19-year-old women on a Times Square subway train was released without bail Tuesday — with her lawyer insisting she didn’t do anything wrong. Mariam Issouf, 26, was cut loose on supervised release after being arraigned on a second-degree robbery charge in the Oct. 2 caught-on-video assault — one day after she turned herself in to cops with her defense attorney at her side. “She did nothing wrong,” lawyer John Russo claimed as he walked out of court with Issouf — who covered her head with a leather...

The main suspect in a New York City subway shooting on Sunday has 19 prior arrests, including for assault, robbery, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the New York Post. Law enforcement sources told the Post Andrew Abdullah is wanted for questioning in connection with the killing of Daniel Enriquez. Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell on Monday morning tweeted pictures of the suspect, who is still at large, asking New Yorkers for "help identifying & locating" the shooter. As part of a progressive criminal justice reform effort, New York abolished cash bail in 2019 for most misdemeanor and nonviolent...

The long and disturbing rap sheet of Frank James, the black nationalist New York City subway shooter arrested on Wednesday and charged by federal prosecutors with one count of committing a terrorist act against a mass transportation system, ought to serve as a national wake-up call. The 24 hour-plus nerve-racking manhunt ended in anticlimactic fashion, with James apparently calling the NYPD to report his own location. But the Brooklyn shooting, which left 10 people with gunshot wounds and 19 others injured in the resulting fracas, stands as the bloodiest act of carnage in the history of the New York City...

Family and advocates are outside NY Gov. Kathy Hochul's New York City office calling for jail reform after two more deaths at Rikers Island.

With violent crime soaring over the last two years, Americans want a solution. Over and over, resident Joe Biden and gun control advocates frame violent crime as a gun problem. Relying on public health researchers, articles such as this one in the Atlantic and in local news stories this week point to increasing gun sales as the cause. But reported gun crimes fell in 2020, so the writers ignore the obvious explanation for rising crime, that law enforcement isn’t being allowed to do its job. Gun sales increased dramatically in 2020 before receding some in 2021. Background checks on gun...

Criminal suspects released on multiple felony bonds in Texas' most populous county have killed 156 people since 2018, according to victim advocates, who have criticized bail reform efforts that have seen some people charged with violent crimes and released back onto the streets only to violently re-offend. In Harris County, home to Houston, the largest city in the state, there are 113 defendants charged with capital murder that been granted bond, Rania Mankarious, CEO of Crime Stoppers of Houston, told Fox News. The group has been tracking statistics in the midst of a change in bond policies.

The arsonist who allegedly torched the Fox News Christmas tree was freed after his arraignment Wednesday night because his charges were not eligible for bail under new liberal reform laws. “I didn’t do it!” suspect Craig Tamanaha, 49, claimed to reporters outside Manhattan criminal court after being asked about the early morning arson that caused about $500,000 in damage outside the Midtown building that houses Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. Tamanaha, a vagrant with a lengthy rap sheet who was known to police, also went on an incoherent rant outside the courthouse. He denied...

FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott informed staffers Wednesday that FOX News Media’s All-American Christmas tree would be rebuilt as "a message that there can be peace, light and joy even during a dark moment" after it was set on fire outside Fox News’ New York City headquarters. "Earlier this morning, FOX News Media’s All-American Christmas tree outside our building on FOX Square was set on fire in a malicious arson attack. The 50-foot tree, which was just lit in a beautiful on-air ceremony on Sunday night, was engulfed in flames and smoke permeated the building," Scott wrote in a...

A homeless man charged with beating a guy last year was dumped back on the street thanks to so-called bail reform, only to allegedly pummel two women in Upper West Side attacks Thursday — and be freed again. Darrell Johnson, 23, left one of his random female victims so brutally beaten that she suffered a “disfiguring laceration” to her face Last year, Johnson — who has more than a dozen arrests on his rap sheet — was hit with assault and harassment charges in the man’s beatdown. He allegedly punched his victim “about the face with a closed fist multiple...

Darrell Brooks, the man charged with killing 6 people when he drove through a Christmas Parade in Waukesha, WI is in the spotlight for why he was out on the street in the first place. Darrell Brooks is a repeat offender and should never have been released from jail in the first place. In this episode, Larry Elder examines Darrell Brooks's upbringing and prior criminal history to show this attack was on purpose based on his criminal record.

The Waukesha incident has once again (and again, and again) raised the specter of societal disintegration in the face of the Defund the Police and Criminal Justice Reform movements. While we may admit that bail is set too high in some cases (January 6 defendants!), the outrageous and unthinking application of “cash bail is bad” is a slow-motion bomb going off. Double and triple digit increases in violent crime in Democrat-run cities that employ such policies are creating outrage among the law-abiding. Why should their grandparents and children suffer when such fools run the asylum? The suspect in the Waukesha...

RACINE COUNTY, Wis. - Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling on Wednesday, Nov. 24 called for the immediate removal of a county supervisor who allegedly posted a man's $10,000 bail. Video provided to FOX6 News by Schmaling shows that man – identified as Adrian Jefferson – with a high-powered weapon. The sheriff said Jefferson is currently facing a multitude of charges, accused of stealing SWAT equipment from a SWAT operator's home; that includes a pistol, sniper rifle and another fully-automatic rifle. Jefferson is also facing felony charges of armed robbery, carrying a concealed weapon and intentionally pointing a firearm at law...